


like a lighthouse

by wastrelwoods



Series: where the heart is [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: M/M, Phone Sex, as close to domesticity as these two might be able to achieve, it's like an epistolary but there's more masturbation, schmoopy porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 09:16:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/wastrelwoods
Summary: When he's all settled in, swollen ankle propped on the desk and a cold pack settled just above his eye, he allows himself to open the recorded message."Hello there, Juno," Peter murmurs, a thousand light years away.





	like a lighthouse

When Juno shuffles home with a sore head and a twisted ankle after the third longest night of his life, there's a message waiting for him on the comms. 

Not the device he usually uses, but a smaller, heavily encrypted model with no serial number, capable of a much longer-distance transmission than the ones they sell in stores. A get-well-soon present from Peter, who came home a month and a half ago to find Juno unexpectedly in the hospital. The gesture was a touch overprotective, in Juno's opinion, but he's got to admit it has its perks. 

It's been weeks since the last time he heard Peter Nureyev's voice. 

Juno scrapes around his apartment for a few minutes, shrugging off his coat and shoes and throwing a handful of shredded credit card fragments into a drawer to sort through later. He glances back at the little green light a couple of times. It's nice, seeing it blink slowly in the dark. Like a little beacon. Like a lighthouse, leading him right back to shore.

When he's all settled in, swollen ankle propped on the desk and a cold pack settled just above his eye, he allows himself to open the recorded message. 

It's audio-only, unfortunately, because Peter has a reasonable aversion to cameras and even on an encrypted network there's no guarantee their conversation can stay private forever. But just the low hum of his breathing as the playback starts is enough for Juno to recognize him. In the dark of his lonely room, he smiles. 

"Hello there, Juno," Peter murmurs, a thousand light years away. There's an AC unit rumbling in the background, the sound of distant, muffled footsteps, an engine running several floors below. "I do hope you're feeling better, and not just pretending to take your medications while you ignore the pain like a stubborn ass. You were stabbed, darling, even you could try to rest up for a week or two." 

Juno rolls his eye, but reaches into the bottom drawer of the desk and shakes out a few of the little white tablets. He tosses them back dry, and resolves that he's only bothering because the throbbing ache in his leg and head and his bandaged side is making it hard to concentrate on what Nureyev is saying. 

Over the recording, he sighs, "I miss you terribly." The audio injects an unfamiliar crackling quality to his speech, but Juno still smiles to hear the pout in his voice. "There's nothing to do on this starship but sit around and think. You'd hate every second of it. And yet...I can't help wishing you were here with me, despite it all. Is that selfish of me?"

And of course Juno knows Peter can't really hear him, but he still fills the momentary lull with his own reply. "Funny, I was just thinking the same thing," he mumbles to himself. 

Peter shifts, and Juno can hear the creak of a cheap mattress, the gentle rhythm of his breathing, and suddenly he misses the feel of Peter's pulse beneath his hand, the smell of his skin, the little curl of hair that dangles over his forehead. It hurts to hear him now and still be so far away. It's almost unbearable. 

"You'll be happy to hear I was a much better thief before you came along," he complains wistfully. "Now I'm afraid I just can't give my work the same kind of attention. My thoughts just keep circling back to you day and night, Juno, it's insufferable." His tone is gentle, teasing, inexplicably fond. Juno's face feels warm, and he shifts the cold pack accordingly. "I was planning to spend a whole week in Osiris, see the diamond waterfalls, maybe peruse a few art galleries, but I find I can't bear to delay my return a moment longer. Who knows what sort of trouble you'll get yourself into without me?"

Juno huffs out a laugh, because he gets into more trouble with Peter by his side than he could ever manage on his own. And that says a lot coming from a lady who got into a fistfight in a sewer three hours ago. He drops the cold pack on the desk and stretches, trying to work the kinks out of his stiff neck. 

"It was lovely to hear your voice," Peter continues. "Though I'm sure you've kept quite busy, I did keep in mind throughout my visit that if I 'got myself arrested you would board the next ship to the outer rim and kill me yourself'. Honestly, dear, you needn't worry yourself over me. I'm a professional." 

"You're an idiot, is what you are--" Juno grumbles, which goes unheeded. 

"There's only one person who's ever managed to put me in handcuffs, Detective." He can hear the smile in Peter's voice. "And we both know you had me at something of a disadvantage then," he purrs.

As if Juno needed another excuse to remember the feeling of Peter Nureyev's mouth on his. He brushes a thumb over his bottom lip, reminiscing, and realizes that Peter has been conspicuously silent for a long moment. 

"Juno?" His voice dips lower, conspiratorial. "Indulge me for a moment, I've been meaning to...try something." There's another moment of silence over the line, and then a soft rustle of cloth and an even softer moan. Juno goes still, one hand curled around the comms and the other flat on his desk, his brain careening wildly away from his head for a moment before he reels it back in, inch by inch. Jumping to conclusions, that's what he's doing right now. He's too goddamn tired to think straight. 

But Peter's breath hitches, and he moans again, a little more audibly. Juno recognizes that moan right away, because the last time he heard it he'd had Nureyev's cock in his mouth, those long fingers twined in his hair to pull him closer, deeper. Juno swallows, and shifts in his seat, leaning closer to the comms. He wouldn't.

He is. 

Another rustle, a low groan, and a burst of quiet laughter from Peter. "Now I wonder, are you going to be--ah!--upset with me, Juno? Or are you going to sit back and listen while I touch myself for you?" 

Juno swears aloud, and covers his eye with one hand as Peter continues to gasp and sigh and shudder over the feed, breaking off after a while to croon Juno's name. Christ, he's infuriating, springing this on him in a way that's half a joke and half a kind of torture. Because Juno knows what he's doing, can hear the rhythmic motion of skin on skin, knows that Peter is arching his back and clawing at the bedsheets with his free hand. He can almost picture the pink flush across Peter's cheeks, but he can't see it. There are a thousand light years between them, and Juno can't see him. Can't touch him. 

Goddamnit, it's not fair. 

Peter slows for a moment, breathing ragged, voice hoarse. "Come with me?" he pleads, like he doesn't know he's been driving Juno crazy, with this. Like he couldn't guess Juno would be sitting here shaking with want, undone before he's even laid a finger on himself. 

And God, he'd asked so nicely, hadn't he? Juno slides a hand past the waistband of his pants and nearly sobs at how good it feels. Fuck, he'd missed this. 

He takes himself out and muffles all the noises that spill past his lips into his sleeve. Thrusts into his own palm, gasps and shudders and thinks about the way Peter throws his head back when he's getting close. Thinks about all the places sweat pools on his skin, above his upper lip and in the hollow of his back. Thinks about the way he always looks at Juno like he wants to steal him. 

Shit, this is really good. 

With Peter's quick, shallow breaths and high moans echoing in his ear, it's easy to forget all the miles between them. It's easy to imagine that he's right here, hands on Juno's neck, lips on his collarbones, bright eyes piercing in the half-light. "Oh, oh, Juno," he cries, his legs wavering ever so slightly under his own weight. "I'm getting close." 

And Juno knows that he is, too, can't catch his breath to reply. He nods and picks up his pace. In his fantasy he leans forward to press his mouth against Peter's neck, grunts out his name like the treasured secret it is. 

Everything else goes white-hot, and he's there, right on the point of a pleasure so explosive and all-encompassing that it makes the whole universe fade away around him. He hears Peter tumble over the edge with a ragged gasp, shakier through the audio channel, and over too soon. 

Juno opens his eyes to the dark stillness, jaw still hanging slack, and slides down in his seat, head thrown back against the back of his chair. 

He thinks for an awful, gut-wrenching moment that the message has ended, but after the briefest instant more of radio silence he can hear Peter's quiet breathing again, a little more irregular than before. He bursts into gentle, breathy laughter, sounding immensely satisfied with himself. "I think we can call that a success, hmm?" 

Juno smiles without even meaning to, searching vaguely around for something to clean his hand. It's a good thing he's so hopelessly in love with Peter Nureyev, or it might be very easy to hate the smug idiot. 

He lets that thought rest for another couple of seconds, and decides it's not worth getting embarrassed about just now. Not like there was anyone around to hear him say it. 

"I love you, you know, Juno" Peter whispers, small words that fill up the whole room like a sharp cologne. "Quite mad about you, really. And I will try to hurry back, to the best of my ability."

Juno opens his mouth to let the words out, but they were never the kind of words that sat right on his tongue, no matter how sincerely he meant them. He'll save them for later, say it to Peter's face, say anything he can to get across the way his heart's been split wide open in his chest from the first day he met the man. The way he makes him feel, more alive than he thought he ever could, raw and broken and bloody and beautiful. "Yeah," he says aloud. 

"One more thing? Please try not to acquire any more stab wounds before I get back, dear," Peter finishes, and the recording ends with a beep. The little green light on the corner of the comms blinks once and goes dark. 

It's a small apartment by the most generous standards, but standing there in the middle of all this dark, silent emptiness makes Juno feel like he's wading through the Martian desert without a compass. He brushes a hand over his face, shuffles out of his stained clothes and leaves them in a trail over the buckling faux-wood floor. He falls face-first into bed, and exhaustion wins out in a matter of minutes. 

Juno wakes up a few hours later, shivering in a blast of sim-wind, and squints dubiously at the open window across the room. Then the mattress shifts, and an arm curls over his waist, and a familiar smell washes over him. Juno smiles, and lets his eye fall shut again. Some moments are worth waiting for.

**Author's Note:**

> hey I guess I can write fluff after all? although maybe there's still a touch of h/c in there Gotta Have My Angst
> 
> hmu @wastrelwoods on tumblr if you're into that kind of hell website


End file.
